Tack & Farm
Our Tack & Farm section features an Apparel section to find both practical and fashionable riding attire. If you ride English & Western or Race, many sources are available in the Tack section.
Building a barn? Need an architect for your equine dream home? Find one in Barns & Stalls.
Have a hungry horse? Of course you do! Find a place to buy your feed and tuck your horse in at night in the Bedding & Feed section. Looking for a place to keep your horse? You can find it in the Horse Boarding section. Keep your horse happy and beautiful with resources in our Grooming section.
Traveling? Find a Shipping company or Horse Sitting service if your horse is staying home!
Running and maintaining a farm or stable is a continuous effort, and to help find products or tools you need, please see our Equipment, Fencing and Management Tools sections.
Seeking Services? Find financial and tax expertise in our Accounting section. Companies who will help protect your investment are found in the Insurance section. For those who want legal advice about purchasing, liability, and other issues, please look at the Equine Law section to find an expert. Build and promote your business with teams from Marketing / Videography / Web Design.
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by Jolyn Young
Driving a truck and trailer is exactly like driving a regular truck, except with a twenty-plus-foot object dragging along behind it that can easily be snagged on curbs, caught on gas pumps, or jack knifed in the Taco Bell drive-through.
But, if you own horses and/or live on a ranch, you will have to drive a truck and trailer at least once, probably through a busy town at lunchtime, whether or not you have the skills and knowledge. Here’s a cheat sheet of tips to help prepare the unsuspecting, legally licensed driver for such a scenario.
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“Wherever you go, your trailer will follow right along behind you.”
I can still hear my dad saying these words to me when I was 16 years old and learning to tow a stock trailer behind his ’96 Ford. It sounds obvious, but it is reassuring to look in the rear view mirror and see that bam, the nose of the trailer is right there, just like it’s supposed to be.
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“You better be barely moving when you get to a stop sign.”
Again, Dad’s words of wisdom ring in my ears every time I approach a red octagon. Especially if I’ve been paying more attention to the radio than the road and am going a little bit too fast to make a smooth stop. That’s when I say “Sorry, boys!” to the horses and cringe as I feel the whole rig shift too far forward as I stop just over the line. Oops.
Alfalfa provides excellent-quality forage but is often underused due to misconceptions
By Dr. Amy Gill, PhD
Horses love the taste of alfalfa and for many, nothing could be better for them. Unfortunately, due to some myths about this forage, it is highly underused as a portion of the total ration. When used correctly, alfalfa can supply a great deal of natural nutrition and has some other physiological benefits as well.
Alfalfa is usually fed as a forage but is also offered as cubes and in chopped form. Few horse owners realize that alfalfa is also commonly included in pelleted concentrate rations and supplements. The addition of alfalfa to a feed provides excellent-quality protein, digestible fiber, digestible energy (calories) and calcium.
Alfalfa is highly recommended to be fed to gestating and lactating mares, growing horses, and horses that are intensively exercised and competing. Geriatric horses also do very well when alfalfa is included in their daily ration because it is so highly digestible compared to other long-stemmed, coarser forages.
Forage makes up between 50 and 90 percent or more of a horse’s diet. Much of the forage part of the diet comes in the form of hay. Because it’s such a big part of the ration, good quality hay can help keep a horse healthy, while poor quality hay can be detrimental.
“As nutritionists and horse owners, we put a big emphasis on the quality of hay we feed,” says Gina M. Fresquez, technical specialist for Equine Technical Services at Purina Animal Nutrition.
“The most important factor determining hay quality is the stage of plant maturity at time of harvest,” says Fresquez. “Young, immature plants contain more nutrients than older, stemmier plants. Though after hay is harvested, the level of hay quality goes beyond the age of the plant at harvest as there are more factors to consider.”
When selecting your horse’s forage, Fresquez recommends keeping these six signs of good quality hay in mind:
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High leaf-to-stem ratio
Think about the leafy greens you eat. You likely prefer greens with leaves rather than just stems. The same is true for your horse.
“Look for more flat leaves in the hay and fewer round stems; this indicates the plant was less mature when cut,” says Fresquez. “More leaves typically mean higher digestibility and nutrient content for your horse.”
by Bonnie Marlewski-Probert
Whether you are going to a horse show, a weekend camping trip or attending a riding clinic at a local stable, trailering your horse is going to be involved. Below are 10 Trailering Tips that will help to make your horse’s next ride stress free.
- Load your horse last. After you have gassed up the truck, loaded your tack, feed, clothing, hitched the trailer, checked that the brake lights and turn signals are working, then and only then should you bring your horse out of his stall. Leaving your horse standing in a hot, enclosed trailer while you try to remember where you left your boots or the cook stove for your camping trip, is just not going to get it done. Not only is it tough on the horse, it is tough on the trailer that will often get kicked by the stressed out, impatient horse within.
